Superman from UNCLE
by JordannaYoung
Summary: When a mission in New York takes a tragic turn, the U.N.C.L.E. team end up learning more about themselves - and the universe - than they could have imagined.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 _New York, July 1963_

Illya could tell that Napoleon was dead before they reached him. They had rushed to the vault when they heard his call for help over the radio, but the upper levels of the complex were crawling with guards, and if they had tried to fight, they would be dead. So Gaby and he had crawled through access ports, lurked in hallways, and crept towards where Solo had been cracking the safe as fast as they could safely manage.

They saw at once that he had succeeded in opening it. The door stood ajar, alarm deactivated (for once, Illya had thought to himself), and beyond in the safe itself, Solo lay on his back, his skin blackened and burned, his eyes wide open and unseeing. Gaby fell to her knees at his side, crying and shaking him, yelling at Illya to help. Illya had seen too much death to believe there was a chance to save their partner. He simply stood, stoically, head bowed, allowing Gaby to rail against him in her grief; tides breaking on the cliffs. As he gazed at his partner, he was struck by the object in the centre of the room, that Solo had clearly been blasted away from. It was a large black box, ornately carved with symbols or letters that meant nothing to Illya.

"Stand back Gaby! Quickly." He carefully lifted Solo's body and carried it to the entrance to the safe, with a bemused Gaby trailing in his wake. He didn't want to repeat Solo's mistake, so he carefully took a pen from his jacket pocket and threw it at the machine, poised to act if there was any response. That was the plan, anyway, yet as the pen sailed through the air, the box started to emit a high-pitched, strangely beautiful sound. Before they could flee, they were bathed in white light that left them rooted to the spot, almost blinded. The light and the haunting sound seemed to grow in intensity. Illya and Gaby put their hands to their ears and screwed their eyes shut, kneeling and leaning over Solo's body in a vain and purposeless attempt to protect him. The last thing Illya remembered before losing consciousness was something winged soaring towards him. Maybe it was a bird.

 _Northwest Territories, Canada, Three Weeks Later_

The two choppers touched down almost simultaneously on the helipad of a large, unmarked building in a complex surrounded by wire. The men who emerged from them had never seen each without their suits and squashed hats, but they would the hardened face of their adversary anywhere.

"Sanders," the first man nodded.

"Oleg," the other replied.

"You know what we are doing here in this wilderness?" the man called Oleg asked.

"Apparently, there's something we gotta see," replied Sanders. "Something that might cast some light on what became of our best agents."

"You maintain, then, that CIA did not do away with Kuryakin? I wish I could believe you Sanders. But these are perilous times for our countries. We do not trust each other easily."

"I want you to believe me as much as I want to believe that you didn't get Solo. Let's see what we find."

A small delegation came out to meet them, led by a familiar figure.

"Waverly? God damnit how did you get here so fast?" Sanders demanded.

"Really Sanders, and you count yourself so well informed. It was I who called you here. I think you'll find it worth your while."

The Russian and the American followed Waverly into the building, and eventually into a large medical bay which held three prone figures lying on the beds that occupied the centre of the room. Two of them were covered with blankets and hooked up to drips, monitors and oxygen. The third, naked apart from a hospital gown, appeared to be dead.

Sanders walked up to examine the figure closely, then looked angrily at his companions. "Solo. So he's dead? Why didn't you just tell me that by phone? What the hell happened?"

"Well you see Sanders, whether Agent Solo is in fact dead is the big question. Look at these photographs of Solo when he was found in New York." He handed them some blown-up images of a virtually unrecognisable corpse. "And here are some taken a week later. Now, look at him today."

Sanders' mouth fell open as he looked from the photographs to the figure lying in front of them. "There has to be some mistake. There's not a scratch on him now!"

"Exactly Sanders, and I can assure you there is no mistake. I was there in New York with the rescue team. There's also the fact that when the doctors here attempted an autopsy, believing Solo was dead, they found that this happened. Doctor, if you wouldn't mind?"

To Sanders' initial alarm, the medic took a scalpel and started to make an incision on Solo's arm, but after a second he noticed that there was no sign of injury; the blade couldn't even make contact with the skin. The harder the medic pressed, the more stress the blade itself took, until he eventually held up a twisted and blunted medical instrument and pointed to the unblemished patch of skin it had failed to penetrate.

"Holy smoke!" This was all the astonished Sanders could offer. "How is that possible?"

Waverly, unflappable as ever, continued. "According to all the normal laws of the universe, it isn't. As far as the chaps here can determine, Solo is generating some kind of gravity field that is rendering him invulnerable. We can't even get past it to administer fluids or medicine, but it doesn't seem to have had the adverse effect it should have. He ought to be, if not dead, on the verge of multiple organ failure from lack of hydration, but apart from the miraculous healing we've witnessed, he seems to be fine other than a little pale and, er, asleep, for want of a better word. Perhaps you ought to let in a little sunlight, doctor? No _Daily Planet_ roving helicopters round here."

While Sanders seemed to be still processing the information received thus far, Oleg was gazing at the other figures in the room.

"What of my agent, Kuryakin, and your own, Waverly?"

"Well we found them collapsed over Solo's body in the fault, both unconscious but otherwise unharmed. We've been unable to wake them since then but they don't seem to be suffering any obvious injuries. Kuryakin is giving off some curious brain activity that we've been monitoring. The best guess the medics have is that he's psychologically disturbed in his sleep. Gaby seems to be flourishing as much as Solo. It's still a mystery, and then there's the matter of the black box we found them with. It's been resealed in the vault and is under guard at the moment; no one could approach it or attempt to open it, but it may provide a clue as to what happened. Otherwise, we can only …" He surveyed his team sadly. "… wait and hope."

Sanders had finally pulled himself together and straightened himself up with a meaningful look at Oleg.

"We'll be finding out everything we can about this black box. In the meantime, keep us informed."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The first thing Napoleon was aware of was the sensation of light and warmth on his face. It seemed to power him from within, dragging him out of the freezing black pit he'd been occupying for what felt like forever. His eyes fluttered open. He could see blurred shapes around him, drifting in and out of focus; he could hear voices, weirdly distorted. He moved his arm, trying to ward off these strange shapes and noises and focus on the light. He felt a hand take his, other hands try to grab hold of him. He panicked, gripping the hand desperately. He heard screaming. The light was shut off, something clamped around his mouth and nose, and the fleeting strength that had allowed him to wake was gone.

 _Washington_

General Swanwick marched into the Situation Room.

"What have you got for me Captain?" he asked.

"Reports from NASA, Sir, of something approaching the Earth, caught on long-range satellite. They're not sure what it is sir, but they do know it's no meterorite."

Swanwick frowned. He hated calls like this, where NASA could never tell him anything.

"Get their experts down here. I want to know what I'm talking about before we go to the President."

 _Northwest Territories_

Illya was walking through the trees. It was summer, they were at the dacha, with the lake and the forest shading the little beach. He moved on, exploring, relishing the freedom from the hot and oppressive city. He could see a dark spot ahead, hidden where the trees met the feet of the hills. He approached, drawn by the darkness and what it might help. As he reached it, he realised it was an opening in the hillside. He squeezed through eagerly. As he entered, he tripped, and as he landed on the ground the cave erupted around him. Screams rent the air. Monsters flew at his face. He picked himself up as fast as he could and ran all the way back to the dacha.

It was only later in bed that he realised that the monsters were only bats. And that he hadn't been afraid. He had felt – what was the word? – _kinship_.

His return to waking was sudden and violent. As soon as he realised he was himself again, the fully grown Illya with no dacha and no mother and father to run home to, he jerked himself upright and raised his arms defensively. Gaby rushed to his side.

"Illya, it's alright. It's alright. We're at a military base in Canada. Waverly is here. You're safe."

He gripped her arm as he scrabbled to process this, to recall the events that could have brought them to this point.

"Canada? How the hell did we get out of New York? What happened to us?" He found his voice was gruff and rasping, the memory of the cave lingering on the edges of this new and bewildering present.

"I don't have all the answers, but I know we were exposed to something in the vault where we found Solo. We're in quarantine, but it's ok. Waverly is in control." Gaby's voice was soothing, but her mention of Solo that the events of the vault came flooding back.

"Cowboy – my God! I forgot for a moment." He pushed his hand to his forehead in grief. "He must be lying in a morgue in New York still."

"No, Illya, it's—it's hard to explain. It may be better just to show you. Can you stand? Shall I ask for a wheelchair?"

Illya looked at her seriously, searching for some clue to the meaning of this cryptic statement in her face, but finding none. "I can stand. Show me whatever you need to show me Gaby," he answered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Gaby led him to a small, darkened room elsewhere in the complex, where Waverly stood gazing through a screen into a brightly lit medical bay adjoining. He turned and smiled when he saw Illya. "Ah, excellent, Kuryakin. I hope you're feeling better?"

Illya, who in spite of his protestations had found the journey exhausting, merely grunted and turned his attention to the medical bay. He almost fainted at what he saw. Solo was alive, lying on a bed in the middle of the room, unconscious, his wrists and ankles strapped to the bed, and with an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose. Illya had not forgotten the sight of his partner's broken body in the vault, and was astonished to see the American without a single mark on him. As he remained locked into the vision of his partner restored to life, he noticed another thing he couldn't explain. Where Solo had appeared to be lying on the bed, Illya could now see that he was actually levitating a few inches above it, seemingly prevented only by the restraints from floating up to the ceiling.

English failed him and he could only swear loudly in Russian.

"I sympathise with your position Kuryakin, although I will remind you there are ladies present," Waverly eventually answered. "I know all the questions you have, but I don't have any answers."

"Cowboy, he—is he sick? Have they woken him?" Illya stammered.

"Unfortunately, not only has Agent Solo somehow managed to bring himself back to life, but he also seems to have, ah, gained in strength somewhat. He crushed the arm of a doctor when he started to regain consciousness, and since then they've been keeping him sedated with gas, but obviously this isn't sustainable forever. Solo is not a lab specimen, whatever he's going through. We've been waiting for you to recover, Kuryakin, as we thought that when he starts waking again you and Gaby might be able to help keep him calm, avoid any more injuries."

Illya nodded, still unable to take his eyes off the floating American.

"There's another reason why we want all three of you well again. The CIA have shared intelligence that suggests that a UFO, if you'll pardon the expression, is heading to Earth."

"A what?" Gaby asked.

"Unidentified Flying Object, Miss Teller. Having eliminated the possibility that someone sneezed on the telescope, NASA are fairly sure this is a piloted space vehicle that is not of Earth origin. It's too much of a coincidence that this is happening just after we found the mysterious box, and just as Solo has started to exhibit these … inexplicable abilities. We must try to find out what is happening before this vessel arrives."

Illya very slowly lowered himself into a chair. "Ok," he finally whispered. "Ok."

He sat on his hands to prevent them from shaking.

Giving the understandable impression of extreme trepidation, the doctor removed the mask over Solo's face and quickly backed away, while a nurse pressed the button on the electric shutters that would let natural light into the room again. Gaby and Illya stood by Solo nervously, watching intently for any response. Within seconds of the sunlight hitting his face they saw him stir slightly.

"Hey Cowboy. Cowboy. Gaby and I are here. It's ok," Illya ventured.

"Napoleon," Gaby added gently, "We're here. Can you open your eyes?"

For one moment, everything seemed to be ok as Solo's eyes fluttered open and he turned his head towards them. But then his face contorted in pain at the same time as his eyes filled with a look of panic? He lifted his hands to his ears and the strong restraints ripped without even slowing him down. Illya couldn't help but take a step back as Solo leaped from the bed, still with his hands covering his ears as though he was trying to shut out some deafening sound. Gaby looked at Illya questioningly, and he swallowed his hesitation and reached out for the American. "Cowboy? Cowboy? Can you hear me?"

What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion. Solo, his face contorted with pain, raised his head to look at Illya just as his eyes impossibly, excruciatingly glowed red like a laser and the American screamed in horror. As raw energy burst from his eyes and Illya froze in horror, Gaby had moved in a blur, grabbed a steel tray holding medical instruments, and thrown herself in front of the Russian, deflecting the laser beam away from them. Illya saw the beam bounce back and lance across Solo's bicep. The pain seemed to recollect him; he forced his eyes shut and grabbed his now bleeding arm. Momentarily distracted, he failed to see Gaby move towards him until he turned his head to catch a punch on his jaw that was strong enough to lift him off his feet and send him crashing into the wall. Illya saw the CIA agent slide down the wall and crumple, not getting up again. He and Gaby stared at each other. She was breathing hard and flushed, looking astonished but almost gleeful with her newfound abilities. Illya turned his head away and began to tap his finger, wondering how much more of this he could take.

A few hours later, Solo was lying propped up in bed. Gaby was perched on it, holding his hand, while Illya leant against the wall, looking stern and impenetrable. When they had examined him after Gaby's blow, they had found him only momentarily stunned, but shocked, confused, and unwilling to move or open his eyes to look at them. Gaby had squatted down by him and gently talked to him until he was eventually persuaded to get back into bed and attempt to see normally. Illya was still stunned by what he had witnessed. The punch Gaby had delivered ought to have killed Solo, but not only did he now not have a single mark on him, but he looked fitter and stronger than the Russian had ever seen him. Illya suspected that his meekness about returning to bed and being checked over by the doctors had more to do with the horror of his new abilities than any physical weakness. Aware that his mind had been wandering, he tuned back into what the other two were talking about.

"But it is amazing," Gaby was saying. "Think what we could accomplish on missions with what we can do now. Solo, you'd never need to carry a gun if you could control what you did with your eyes."

"But what if I couldn't, Gaby?" he replied in an unusually quiet voice. "I crushed a doctor's arm without even realising. If you hadn't acted so quickly, I could have killed you and Illya."

"What do you remember, Cowboy?" Illya interrupted. "Before you awoke just now?"

"Not much. I've been thinking about it. I can remember cracking the safe in New York, and walking inside, but very little other than that until I first woke up here and injured the doctor. I felt like the sunlight was giving me energy, as though I'd been too weak to wake up until it hit me. But once I woke up … it was scary. It was like I could see and hear everything, but couldn't focus on anything. That's how it was when you woke me, too. I could see my hands in front of my face, but also every bone in them, like an x-ray. And I could hear you talking to me but also everyone talking in the entire complex. It _hurt_. It's getting better now. It's like if I concentrate, I can just focus on your faces, your voices, and the rest recedes into the background. That's all I remember." He frowned. "Except …"

"What?" Kuryakin asked.

Solo looked at him again. "Dreams. But more than dreams. Like memories, memories of someone else's life. I saw a beautiful woman with long red hair, crying, and it was like a knife twisting in my chest. I could feel myself flying as fast as a rocket, even into space. And I could see a … figure. Like a monster. He was holding a black box with symbols I didn't recognise carved all over it, and yet it was like the symbols were a language I'd forgotten."

Illya frowned even more deeply. This didn't sound like the Solo he knew, this kind of talk. How much of his partner had actually survived the vault?

"This does not answer our questions. Do you know that you were dead, Cowboy? Many times I have seen dead men before, and I knew that you had not survived the vault. Then you come back, without so much as a scratch! Who are you, Cowboy? What have you not told us?"

Solo looked away, and Illya was surprised to hear it was Gaby who was first to respond.

"That's not fair, Illya. I've never hidden anything from you, and I'm changing too. I have strength that doesn't seem natural. I'm dreaming of oceans and beaches I've never visited, feeling a sword in my hands that I've never held. We all need answers. And what about you? You've been more secretive, angrier than I've ever seen. What are you going through that we should know?"

Illya let her accusation hang in the air for what seemed an age before answering.

"You say you have never hidden anything, Little Chop Shop Girl, yet you lied about being a British agent, and handed Solo to your uncle like a bone to a hungry wolf. I have no dreams of monsters and sword fights to tell you about. All I have are the nightmares of the life I have lived. At least _I_ am able to face up to that."

He turned and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him as he left.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Solo slept uneasily. They hadn't seen Illya since he stormed out that afternoon. Gaby had been upset by his callous accusations, despite Solo's assurances that he didn't blame her for what had happened with Uncle Rudi. Eventually she'd agreed to give Illya some time to cool down, and she had gone back to the room that had been assigned to her. Solo still had nowhere to sleep but the public and impersonal medical bay where he'd awoken that afternoon, but he wasn't about to complain. After what had nearly happened, he understood why the military would want to keep an eye on him. In his dreams he saw the red-haired woman again. She seemed to be calling to him, urgently, but he couldn't understand her. Then she started to make sense, but her voice was wrong, she was speaking with a man's voice, it was angry and urgent, and he recognised it.

Solo drifted awake without opening his eyes, and gradually realised he was hearing a conversation that had entered his dream as he woke. There was no one else in the room, but he could pin the voices down to the hidden room behind the screen adjoining his medical bay. As he gained in alertness, he realised that the angry voice was that of Sanders, his CIA handler, and the other that of Waverly.

"Waverly, I don't know. I spoke to the NSC. They're not at all happy about a thief and a little East German girl with Nazi relatives running around with these … superpowers or whatever they are. And even the Russian might turn out to be developing some new skills before we know it, and he isn't exactly stable! I'm being pushed to neutralize all the subjects, at least until we know more about what we're dealing with here."

"Subjects? Really Sanders, after ten years can't you even give your own agent a name?" Waverly replied. "I should point out that you have no jurisdiction here on Canadian soil, and in any case, we cannot simply indefinitely sedate the team until we decide they might not be a threat. And then there's the matter of the UFO. If, as the president and Prime Minister agree, _something_ is coming, then having individuals with the sort of abilities Solo and Teller have been exhibiting would seem to be prudent, at the very least. And is it a coincidence that they've developed these … unusual talents at the same time as we may be forced to acknowledge the existence of little green men?"

"No jurisdiction?" Sanders sneered back. "Like we couldn't take the Canadian Army in time for morning coffee if we chose to force the issue. Unlike you, Waverly, I have no sentimentality about my agents. I will look out for them as long as they are useful, but right now Solo is more of a danger than an asset – he almost lasered your girl in half for God's sake. He came back from the dead! I've already spoken to the commander here, and you're in no position to argue Waverly. They'll all be restrained and sedated if necessary, until we know more about what the hell is going on. We've got enough to handle without those three clowns running amok and becoming unstoppable."

Solo had heard enough. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he knew the red-haired girl was significant, and that he had a role to play in what was happening, and he wouldn't get any answers lying drugged in the Arctic while whatever the thing heading to Earth got closer and closer. As he opened his eyes he saw a team of doctors, accompanied by a large detail of soldiers in combat gear enter the room and approach him, evidently ready to carry out Sanders's orders. Solo leapt from the bed and noticed the power with which he sprang into the air and landed lightly, almost as though he was no longer tethered by gravity. Two soldiers rushed him and he held up his arms instinctively. They crumpled against his forearms as though they had run into a brick wall. A third soldier approach and Solo attempted to push him away without using too much force; the man flew backwards and slid down the back wall, not getting up again. The leader of the detail watched this and his expression hardened. Solo raised his arms again as he heard the order to open fire, but he may as well have been sprayed with gravel; the hail of bullets couldn't penetrate. They angered him however, especially as he thought about what might be happening to Illya and Gaby at the same time. Solo clenched his fists and saw the dead bullets on the ground start to lift above it, and suddenly he knew what he could do. Crouching and pushing away from the ground, he rose up to the ceiling, above the gun fire, and then focused and drew forth the heat building behind his eyes, and very precisely destroyed each of the guns in turn as the soldiers dropped them in astonishment. Taking a breath, and still dressed in the hospital scrubs he'd awoken in, he burned a hole in the wall and flew through it in search of his partners.

Focusing his newfound extended vision and ability to break through walls, he found Gaby without too much difficulty, a pile of incapacitated guards and medics surrounding her.

"Gaby! We have to get out of here. Waverly can't defend us, and we'll be useless if we let them keep us here."

"I got the sense that our hosts were becoming a little less welcoming. I had to correct their manners." She tilted her head towards the pile of groaning men and smiled.

"Where's Illya? I can't see him? We should leave before they try a grenade launcher on us."

"His room is next door. I thought I heard him come back and go to bed a while ago."

As soon as he heard her first sentence he walked straight to the wall and punched a hole through it large enough for them to walk through. There was no sign of Illya, or even of battered medics.

Solo looked around anxiously. "Did they get him, Gaby?"

"Solo look at this," she called.

The nightstand by Illya's bed had been pulled out of place, and behind it, scratched into the steel wall, was the outline of a bat.

"What does this mean?" Gaby asked.

Solo stared for a moment at the image before answering. "It means Peril's already gone." They heard voices and booted feet approaching quickly. "We'll find him later, don't worry. But right now, we need to get out of here and get some answers. Hold tight."

He scooped Gaby up into his arms, kicked off hard from the ground and carried them both straight through the roof and into the sky.


	5. Chapter 5

Illya hammered the gas pedal of the jeep and checked the mirrors again anxiously. Thus far, there was no sign of pursuit, but it was only a matter of time. He knew Oleg, and he had his suspicions about Sanders, and there was no way either one of them would tolerate a couple of dangerous trained agents with superhuman strength running around Canada without their say-so. While Illya himself hadn't demonstrated any new abilities, that would hardly stop the CIA and KGB from locking him up with Solo and Gaby.

As he thought of his partners, he felt a twinge of guilt at leaving without them, but the feeling was quickly replaced by niggling fear and resentment. He could not understand what had happened to Solo, but he feared the powers the American seemed to have, and the use to which he might put them. Cowboy had proven his loyalty to U.N.C.L.E. thus far, but the man was a thief and a conman who had done it all for a luxury lifestyle, and if he had the power to crush Sanders where he stood, what was to stop him from doing whatever occurred to him? And Gaby … He trusted Gaby more than the American, and yet she was on his side, and wrapped up in whatever was happening to her. No, he was stronger alone, leaving them all behind and trying to find the meaning of the haunting nightmares that were his only gift from the vault. He sighed, relishing the darkening skies, the comfort he could draw from the cover of darkness. He would drive a few hours, looking for some sign of civilisation – after all, the base had to be built, accessed, and serviced somehow – then he could ditch the jeep and hitch a lift towards a place he had never been, but that seemed to be drawing him now: a city called Gotham.

Gaby looked down over Solo's shoulder, marvelling again at the transformations that had brought them to this point. They were flying stratospherically high above the Earth, the glass-shattering boom as they took off telling Gaby they were travelling beyond the speed of sound, yet the freezing cold and lack of air couldn't touch her or Solo.

"Where next?" Solo asked gently, smiling at her. She touched his arm affectionately. This was another transformation: the sly, impenetrable American seemed less troubled, kinder, more open than she had ever known him before his resurrection.

As she pondered her response, the answer came to her instantly.

"Themiscyra," she replied.

"Isn't that a lost city?"

"Maybe not so lost any more, for me. Take me there, please. Fly lower. I will guide you."

"Whatever you say. I trust you." Solo focused and dived down over the Mediterranean.

Just a few minutes later, Gaby suddenly grabbed Solo and pointed. "There. This is the place."

She couldn't explain her certainty to the American, but maybe he understood, because as they landed by the banks of the river he spoke again. "Gaby, I have to go."

"Go? Where? Don't you think we should stick together until we know more?"

"We will. I'll come back, but you're being drawn to answers, and so am I. But this isn't the right place for me. I can feel where I have to go. I will be back. Goodbye."

"When, Solo wait!" she called, but he had already disappeared into the sky.

She quickly forgot her partner in spite of herself, however, as she turned around to see a woman gazing at her, tears forming in her eyes, who finally said in a cracked voice: "Welcome back, my daughter."

Solo eventually landed in an icy wilderness. He understood now Gaby's certainty of where she should be; somehow, he knew this place. As he looked around, what he had thought was a completely natural landscape revealed a metal vessel, half-concealed under the ice, a short distance away. Solo leaped the distance and examined the vessel. As he did so, a door opened by itself in the side of it, and he entered. Normally, he would be cautious about entering an unknown area, but somehow he was certain he had nothing to fear.

The interior of the vessel was like nothing he'd ever seen. Smooth metal gleamed everywhere. Instead of the usual switches, buttons and levers of a plane, say, he saw flat surfaces that shifted to the requirements of the user. As he moved to examine one, a shadow behind him turned him to whirl around.

A middle-aged man, strangely dressed in long robes was standing there, staring at him with a strange mixture of longing and relief. He held Solo's eyes for an eternity before he spoke a single word.

"Kal-El."

"Who are you? What does that mean?" Solo tensed and eyed the man suspiciously, and yet it felt like going through the motions his training as a spy had ingrained him. Somehow, he knew this man, and he knew he was not a threat. Even as this thought came to him, a memory flitted into his mind.

"Kal-El … is my name?"

"Yes."

"And you are?" Again, the answer came to him as he phrased the question. "Father."

The robed man nodded wearily.

"I'm sorry you've had to go through this again, Kal-El."

"Again?" Solo tired of asking questions.

"You have become aware that you are … different from the humans around you? More powerful, impervious to attack, possessing the power of flight?" Solo merely closed his eyes in assent. "You derive these powers from your birth right as a Kryptonian. I am your father, you are right. My name is Jor-El, or rather, I am a projection of his memories created before his death during the destruction of our planet. Your mother and I sent you into space to escape, to survive the death of our world. Do you remember everything I am telling you?"

"How can I remember something I've never known?"

"You do know."


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry this update took a long time to come, and thanks for reading if you've made it this far. Reviews and suggestions are really welcome. I'm hoping to be moving a bit quicker now I've got started up again with this story.**

Waverly's hands shook slightly with suppressed anger as he sat in the noisy and bustling Metropolis restaurant waiting for his contact, nursing a weak and ersatz cup of coffee. A lifetime of public school and the British Navy wouldn't permit him to express his feelings to anyone else, but he was furious about the loss of his agents, his organisation, the casual way in which Sanders had tried to neutralise them. He didn't know what the context for Sanders' actions was, but he knew the man was concealing a great deal, and that a direct assault on the man for information would be useless. He kicked the steel table leg in frustration and cursed under his breath in pain. It wasn't just the fact that his agents were lost and suffering who knew what. It was the fact that he realised he had no idea who they really were, and that Sanders might. He couldn't believe the agents themselves had deceived him. He'd met many liars, spies and double-dealers and he'd never seen a trace of it in them. Even Solo, the former crook, wore his former dishonesty openly in U.N.C.L.E., seemingly happy to move forward on the basis that Waverly, Gaby and Illya all knew what he had been and hadn't rejected him for it. But Sanders had tricked him, had concealed something of immense importance about these three. Oleg was in on it too, inevitably, so it must be huge. Now Waverly was determined to get to the bottom of matters, and then do whatever he could to find and help his agents.

A young woman, smartly dressed in a suit and fashionable, oversized glasses walked in and sat down opposite Waverly.

"Sorry it took me so long to contact you," she offered. "It hasn't been easy to get what you wanted. I had to wait for an excuse to access the relevant section of the records; what you seek is highly classified."

"I appreciate that Bridget, and I am most grateful," Waverly soothed. "Everything we agreed in case of any … unpleasantness … for you has been arranged. You have nothing to fear."

She gave a curt nod, looked around her, and nudged the briefcase she had carried in towards Waverly under the table.

"I think you'll find the text I've prepared enlightening," she continued. "Good day, Alexander."

Waverly, aided by years of practised patience and caution, waited until he was secure in his hotel room and had combed the place for bugs with a thoroughness not even Illya could criticise before he started to read. Bridget had been characteristically industrious, and a range of CIA personnel and strategic documents lay before him. He started at what he suspected was the source of the mystery: Napoleon Solo's unredacted file. While, he reflected again, he had never sensed any duplicity in the agent himself, the spy's history had never sat comfortably with him. It wasn't just the history of stealing that seemed so out-of-kilter with the freedom the CIA allowed him, but the man himself. He was an enigma, never speaking of family or any past prior to joining the Army, that smooth cosmopolitan accent not even betraying what part of America he hailed from. As he turned to the first page of the file, rather than the usual initial biography, he was surprised to see a sheet of paper he could make no sense of:

S.T.A.R. Labs

Operation SILO

Silo? Waverly pondered. A grain storage unit? And what on earth were S.T.A.R. Labs? He read on eagerly. Clearly, the truth went deeper than Waverly had any conception of.

The truck driver let Illya out still some miles from Gotham. Despite not knowing exactly where he was heading, the place felt right somehow. "Thanks buddy," he directed at the driver in his best synthetic American accent. The small act reminded him again of Solo, and he felt the anger and suspicion rise up in him again at the thought of their last conversation. Illya prided himself on his unflinching ability to face the truth, but he wasn't quite ready to acknowledge how much jealousy he felt too. He still had a sense of being left out, not only from the gift or curse of the strange powers his fellow agents were developing, but of the secret of what this all meant. What did Gaby and Solo know? All he had to go on was the sense of being drawn to this place, and the haunting visions of the bats that flitted through his dreams.

Growing accustomed to the dark, he spotted a short distance off the gates of a private estate, and beyond them, a crumbling, once luxurious mansion house. Illya could not comprehend of such a place holding any significance for him, but once again, he was drawn to it magnetically. The gates were locked electronically, requiring the entry of a key code. Illya, dismissing thoughts of which of his tools would be right for the job as quickly as they arose, punched in 228626, and watched the gates hum into life to admit him.

A little while later, for the grounds of the old wreck were extensive, he reached the house to find the door open for him. Standing in the entrance hall, seeming almost overcome with barely concealed emotion, was a white-haired, elderly man, who held up his arms at the sight of Illya.

"Master Wayne, I can scarcely believe it's true. Welcome home."

Before Illya could utter a word of protest, the little man tottered over to a door that looked like it would lead to cellar, punched another keypad, and opened the door to reveal a descending staircase to a passageway sheathed in metal, the curious symbol of a bat superimposed on the light mounted on the wall. Illya shut his eyes at the memory of his nightmares, yet stumbled forward in response to a gesture from the elderly man.

He peered at him as he passed. "Alfred?" he whispered.

"I suspected you'd want to get started right away, Master Wayne."


End file.
